Monday, October 12, 2009

Heather had a craving for poached eggs this morning, and I figured they couldn't be too hard to make -- water, eggs, done like dinner. I googled around, and ended up cracking the egg into Saran wrap, dropping into almost boiling water, and cooking for five minutes. It turned out really well. It sounds a bit weird, and I was concerned about the Saran wrap melting to the pot, but it worked out -- no vinegary taste, and no mess in the pot.

I just had hard boiled eggs: cover the eggs in cold water, bring to boil, take off heat, cover with lid and let sit for twelve minutes.

It's been really cold at night the past few days. There was a frost warning for Toronto last night, our outdoor thermometer registered a low of 1.4C. It was cold enough yesterday evening that we dug out our winter boots and gloves to go for a walk after dinner. Most places were closed for Sunday or Thanksgiving. We ended up stopping in at The Roy. The place is somewhat growing on me. It still looks like an Irish-pub-in-a-box, but I guess the space is a box, so it would be hard to end up with much else.

It's been a pretty busy weekend. On Friday night we got together with Heather's friends Darlene and Fed after work at the Elephant and Castle. We had a couple drinks, and then walked over to Chinatown for dinner.

On Saturday night we drove to St Catharines for dinner with Shelley and Geron. It was excellent, Geron's a really good chef. We had appetizers of scallops, with orange, sundried tomatoes and fennel. (Shelley and Heather are rather particular about scallops, but Geron cooked them perfectly). The main was pastry-wrapped salmon with asparagus, dill and mushrooms. Both were matched with wines from the Niagara region. Mmmm good.

This afternoon we're heading to my parents for Thanksgiving dinner.

I'm hoping that it will warm up one last weekend before winter. One of the sub-projects in the backyard was to fix the siding at the back window. There's a 4"x4" gap in the siding (from the previous owners), and it's always cold near that corner inside the house in the winter. I'd like to take off the siding, put in some insulation around the window, and put the siding back on. I have an extra length of siding to fix the gap.

Saw that Six Shooter is moving -- although nothing on their storefront or website says where they're going.

The new flower store beside Te Aro (the coffee shop) has made a nice cosy corner between the two. You'd never guess that a few months ago it was a dry cleaner and an auto body shop.

The new bar where Carlaw Carburetors used to be is still under construction. They've covered up the front with wood, presumably changing the windows. They've saved the old sign, I wonder if they will put it back up when they're done.